


Dusty Footprints

by Arsenic, arsenicarcher (Arsenic)



Series: 14 Valentines [37]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2020-07-10 06:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19901437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/arsenicarcher
Summary: Li Pong's version of the events in "Chinatown."  Written for the women and economics/poverty theme of 14v 2012.





	Dusty Footprints

Twelve dollars was more money than Pong had ever seen in one place. She was glad to learn she was worth at least enough to be out of her price range, if not enough that it was beyond her imagining. Idly, she wondered how much opium it would buy her uncle, whether he would consider it worth it when she was not there to launder his clothes, bring him food, drag him from his own filth when necessary. She wondered if he would even have enough presence of mind to remember she had once been there. Spitefully, she hoped he did. She hoped he died alone with the knowledge she would have stayed with him, loyal and true.

*

The man who bought her had a nice room: clean and appointed with a sort of quiet lavishness she was not used to encountering. She could not have said why she felt the need to hide, except perhaps the worry that he might have _meant_ she was free, or that he wanted no responsibility for her. She was not certain what she would do in that instance. Her mother had always counseled her that it was better to apologize afterward than ask for permission beforehand. This instance certainly seemed to call for such advice.

The man’s closet was stuffy in the mid-summer heat of the Colorado/New Mexico Territory. Pong rather liked the quiet darkness of it, allowing her time alone, a rare and precious treat in her experience. And it carried the pleasant smell of linen-pressed cloth, familiar and nostalgic from the Chinese neighborhoods of San Francisco. All-in-all, it was not a bad place to hide if one discounted the heat. Pong had endured much worse, so she didn’t mind.

Even through the solid wood of the door, she heard the man enter. She took a breath, and then another. Just when she was about to open the door, about to explain that she was useful and could serve him in everything, that his investment worthwhile, she heard the click of armament and the man’s strange, slow speech demanding to know who was there. It was startling. Most people didn’t realize she was in the room even when she was visible and speaking.

Slowly, she opened the door, hoping he was the kind to look before he shot. Men were unpredictable in that regard, especially white ones, who weren’t as likely to have to face the consequences. When her gaze met his, her new owner’s, he blinked first. She couldn’t remember a time when that had happened with someone else, either.

*

The man’s name was Ezra, which was difficult to twist her tongue into saying, but sounded nice when she managed. When the other man, the man who looked at her with concern and at Ezra with resigned suspicion had left, and the quiet hurt lining Ezra’s frame bled out, he asked, “When was the last time you ate?”

Pong was good at being practical. She was the eldest of the girls in her family, and being so had always been an important skill, along with keeping dates and times and facts straight, and being able to problem solve quickly and easily. She felt, at this moment, however, as if her mind was a blank, too whirled up by the events of the day to retain much of anything. She put her mind to the question.

Ezra shook his head. “If you have to think about it at length, m’dear, the answer is an egregious amount of time. Remain here, I will procure sustenance for the both of us.”

The words came at her faster than she could translate, for all the way his speech cadence was something of a drawl. She didn’t know quite a few of words he used, either, but she knew he was telling her to stay there, and it was not as if she had anywhere else to do. She had already admitted as much. She smiled and he seemed pleased with that response. She was left alone.

*

The food Ezra brought back was warm and filling. Pong only helped herself to small portion, but Ezra just kept adding to it, presumably when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. Perhaps it worked with the type of women he was used to, women who lived in houses that could afford to feed everyone equally, women who did not have older and younger brothers who were first in line to eat at every meal.

By the time the last crumb had been swallowed, Pong felt sleepy and satisfied in a way wholly new to her. Ezra made his way about the room, graceful, telling her stories in his rolling, lilting syllables. She didn’t really understand, not a lot of it, but it was soothing. She wandered what his mouth tasted like, if it was as smooth as the sounds he made.

When she offered, though, he refused, telling her she needn’t. She wondered if there was a way to make him see that she knew that. Her English was minimal, and she was fully aware he held all the power between them, but he had not taken her just because he could and she did not want him simply because he had not exercised his monetarily established right to her. She wanted him because he was different and new and beautiful.

She had left home because they had no place for her, no money to feed her, yes. But she had also left to see what she could see. For the first time, in Ezra, she was seeing something worth all the hardships of leaving home.

*

Ezra’s bed was like a dream Pong had never even known to dream. She had helped in her uncle’s laundry back home, and there had been sheets and blankets, but nothing that had hinted at something this luxurious. She didn’t want to leave it. The idea of merely standing up after the experience of lying on something that coddled her more gently than her mother was less than appealing to her.

Even so, she slipped from the bed and out of the room, doing her best not to wake Ezra. She suspected he did awaken, but upon recognizing her tread, allowed himself to fall back asleep. She made her way down to the tavern to see if she could return the favor of dinner from last night by bringing up breakfast. She was not sure what kind of payment plan Ezra had for meals, but she was certain she could puzzle it out.

No sooner had she gotten herself down the stairs and into the tavern main than two of the men Ezra had ridden with the day before turned to look at her. The young one, who was probably no older than she, seemed uncertain of how to react. The one with the mustache smiled kindly and said, “Well howdy there, miss. You hungry?”

A woman swept out from somewhere behind the bar and said, “Good morning, senorita. Breakfast for you and Mr. Standish, si?”

Pong nodded her head. The woman refilled the coffee in the two men’s cups, smiling sweetly at the younger one and smirking at the other. Pong watched her, studying. This woman had a way of making her control of a situation clear through a single look, a twitch of her hand or hip.

The taller man pulled a chair at the bar back and said, “Might as well sit while you wait, darlin’.”

Pong had never had someone pull a chair out for her, in a backwater tavern or anywhere else. She took a seat.

*

When Ezra handed her the money to go home, all she felt was the brush of his fingers, warm and gentle. A second later, the weight of the paper in her hands registered, a heaviness she’d never felt before. She thought maybe it wasn’t just the money, but rather what she could do with it, what he intended her to do with it.

She asked if he wanted her to go because she did not know how to say she had thought about staying, imagined what it would be like, who she could be in this town, who she could be to him. There was more than a language barrier, there was an experience barrier, something she had no idea how to transcend.

So instead of words she touched him, took the embrace she wanted, the sweep of her lips against his cheek. It was the first time she could remember taking anything that wasn’t hers, anything she didn’t have the funds to purchase. He held on, as though he was something she could take, if she chose, if she made her desires clear.

First, though, she needed to be sure of what those desires were. She clenched her fist tightly around the money. Perhaps now, she had the means to search.


End file.
